


Alba... A Companion Piece

by Frin



Series: The Time Lord's Wife [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16111577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frin/pseuds/Frin
Summary: An explanation  of Alba aka The White Wolf





	Alba... A Companion Piece

**Author's Note:**

> As some of you may or may not know, I recently finished the Time Lord's Wife... It made me very sad and therefore after tossing around with a couple of comments on reviews have decided to add a few bits and pieces to it. This is the first, the introduction of 'The White Wolf' which KT Rose came up with... I'm hoping to do a story about our Alba but wanted you to have a bit more background on her before I start. Thanks X

It was just an ordinary day. The Doctor was out back with our new TARDIS, then in the shape of a tree. We used it for holidays back then when Alba was still at school, and some lovely times we had too... we went all over the Universe on our holidays. But of late, it had been getting harder for Alba to not say about all her wonderful experiences. She was at that age where a vivid imagination turns into' liar', at least where other children and her teachers were concerned.n

The call came late... an emergency at school... an explosion. I don't remember calling him, but I must have screamed pretty loudly because he was with me in moments. He took the phone from me... it was Pete... my dad, he was there, couldn't get in... Alba's class... hurry...

Within moments we were in our TARDIS, I was by the doors, waiting to get at her. As soon as we materialised, I was out. The school was ablaze, fire engines galore. No one was getting in or out. A few bedraggled singed children covered in silver blankets, even her form teacher... but no Alba.

We turned as one back into the TARDIS and materialised right in the heart of the fire. I opened the doors again, the heat was excruciating. Alba!

We saw her standing there she looked like she was burning over and over. The Doctor re-navigated and we re-materialised right around her. I ran to her ready to put out the flames, but she was too hot; burning, yellow flames heading upwards into the eaves of our TARDIS.

And then it stopped and there was another little girl standing there. Alba?

She burst into tears, put her arms out to me. I paused for a small moment, a nano second... she wasn't Alba and yet... instinct told me, she was...

Later, in the vortex she was asleep in the infirmary, her hearts were on the screen beating out their double pulse. He looked sadly at me as if he felt responsible for this.

“She's alive... she wouldn't be if it wasn't for that...” I said to him, holding him in my arms and rocking him. We might have had Alba there, but there was a little girl for us to mourn still. This is the first time he'd seen or felt this from the other side. A baptism of fire, so to speak.

“I didn't know...” he said and began to softly weep. He wept for our little Alba, wept for what this new Alba had in front of her. I held him while he let it out and when he was done I wandered over to the sleeping child, stroked her hair.

“It's the Alba that was in the garden the day she was born... I did wonder as she was growing...” I said softly.

“You're incredible, you know that? You can just accept it so easily?” He moved beside us.

“Been through it before, not quite like this, granted... but she's still her, right?” He nodded, smiling weakly.

Over the next couple of days, we had to do a great deal of work with her. She was traumatised by the fire and awoke screaming several times in the night. Eventually, her father stepped in and went in to her head. 

He showed her what he once was. Oh, we had touched on it before in a fairytale like manner, but this was different. He had to teach her the facts. I thought of that poor little eight year old boy who had been forced to gaze into the Untempered Schism and I silently wept for him. It was a sad time.

Eight children died in that explosion including Alba, As you can imagine, we couldn't take her back. There were too many questions to be asked. Alba's best friend had been sitting beside her when the gas ignited. To see a seven year old suffer survivor's guilt along with everything else was heart breaking.

“I've been monitoring her since we got her,” he said softly to me one night while Alba was finally resting, “these machines are very sophisticated... I didn't see why we needed them, but she insisted we had them... “ (He meant the TARDIS, who, once she became a little more sentient, had her own input about how she should progress...)

“What did you find out?”

“That this is Alba's fourth life cycle...” He couldn't even look me in the eye when he said it.

“Fourth! But how, we've known that Alba all her life?”

“She's our miracle... we always said that... you know how hard it was for us to conceive before and after her?”

“You're telling me she regenerated in the womb... twice?”

“Yes... if that ability hadn't somehow been triggered, we would have lost her too...”

“But her heartbeat in the womb? She only had the one?”

“I was only looking for one, and there's your own heartbeat getting all mixed up in there... it would have been easy to miss really...”

The whole of it was an horrific thing to come to terms with but we had Alba to think of so we couldn't let it swallow us up.

We went on lots of extended trips, and gradually Alba came to terms with it and started to embrace what she is.

My Mum was brilliant. I explained it to her very carefully and she accepted it with relief, seeing that all that mattered in the scheme of things is that we still had Alba.

Pete, my Dad, found it all so much harder to grasp and Alba was very good and patient with him. It's an awful lot to take in. A brand new person with the same memories but with a whole new personality, different likes and quirks. But we already loved her, how could we not?

Of course she couldn't return to school, not after that. How could you possibly explain that to pupils and students without being arrested? In fact, explaining Alba was going to be a hard task for the rest of her childhood and that's really when we decided to go travelling properly. The TARDIS was more than ready, Alba was ready. There was a whole new Universe to explore.

There were a few trips back to Earth over the years, usually to visit my family and a couple of visits to right the past. One in particular was on Alba's birthday, but that’s already been told in the most when it happened. I will say, it was a strange thing knowing what was going on out there while I remained inside waiting as I have done on a fair few occasions over the years. Even when Alba darted out I knew what was happening, but I had to stay hidden away, every fibre in my body wanting to go and warn us all about what Alba was. But I knew, on this occasion, I couldn't or else he would have told himself, besides, what good would come of it?

Over time, as she grew, we told the story of our life (lives?) to Alba, we left nothing out, we owed her that.

She often talked about her 'other daddy' across the divide and her human daddy was patient and answered all her questions truthfully. She was also fascinated by the Bad Wolf and when she was fourteen after she got into a nasty scrape helping her father rescue some Dweens from being carted across the Universe to be sold as slaves she announced that she had chosen her title as was her right as a Child Of Time. She was to become the White Wolf. We still called her Alba.

I've seen her through three other regenerations. They're always harrowing and hard, but she seems to find them easier and easier as she goes along. He says that's a good thing because one day there will be a time when we won't be there to pick up the pieces. This breaks my heart.

He taught her so much, our above average daughter, became a brilliant shining star, sometimes running rings around her own father. She was thirsty to learn, thirsty to explore. We had many fantastic adventures together as a family. But we gradually started to wear and we retired home to Earth where we lived into old age with each other. 

Every now and then, Alba would breeze in and regale us with stories of her adventures and sometimes we would meet her travelling companions.

We did the best we could do for our White Wolf and I hope, in years to come, centuries to come, she will look back on our years with happy memories and with no regrets...


End file.
